Site Critique - Feedback needed. Have high bounce rate. Why?

[HorseOptions]

Hi, we've launched a new website HorseOptions.com. I've added Google Analytics and it says we have a 40+% bounce rate. As I understand it that's when people go to the home page and don't go any further. Not good. May I ask for some feedback as to why? Any suggestions to make people want to stay longer and post ads would be helpful. Keep in mind we'd like to keep the site clean and uncluttered so....let me know. Thanks.
PS. I'll copy this request into the HTML forum, Site Critique Forum, and Site Marketing Forum - just to make sure I get maximum feedback. Sorry to duplicate.

[bowers01 +]

Firstly only post it once, dont make multiple threads.
In my opion i always like the categories listed on the home page, also you should use the "featured listings" or "new listing" plugins on the home page. This is only my opinion.

You just have to think what makes the competition sites better than yours, you have to get the visitor interested and really offer them something.

Nick

[HorseOptions]

Sorry about that....we've drawn attention to the new listing tab and changed the font on the home page. Otherwise we were trying to keep it clean and not clutter up the home page with catagories & ads.

[Lhotch +]

SEO in and of itself is a full time job for many people so the help you get here is likely going to be limited and your best bet for learning about SEO would be to scour the web and read many of the articles out there on the subject.

On a side note, you could spend every hour of every waking day getting and keeping you site at the top of any given search engine and while its certainly a nice thing to have if you are relying on that for the majority of your biz then in my opinion you are wasting your time.

When the internet was in its fledgling state search engine placement was king, now wigth billions of pages people are simply getting too lazy to use search engines and they should, in my opinion, take a back seat to other marketing strategies.

[HorseOptions]

Any personal opinions that might make you stay on the site longer?

[seymourjames +]

I agree with Larry that SEO is a full time job in itself and quite specialized. It is only worthwhile if you are going to win at it or you are in for a very frustrating time.

Bringing traffic to your site is one thing but keeping them there is another. I look at your home page and it did not push me to go to other pages. It is easily navigated, clean and tidy. Attractive for those qualities but in my humble opinion you are not saying enough of the right things or pushing people around your site. Here are some points to consider.

1. why do you tell people it is a new site (in my mind - here today, gone tomorrow). You might be excited but why should I be excited etc.

2. You do not instruct people enough on what you want them to do - BUY YOUR HORSE HERE, SELL YOUR HORSE HERE. Hundreds of horses for sale, etc. Put a set of testimonials on the side bar for example (I sold my black shetland pony in less than 2 days etc.). You don't need to tell them on your home page in this case boring things like I can bold or feature my advert etc.

This is not a plug for my wares but why not display the latest and featured listings on your home page. Put an arrow to them and say - Place your horse for sale here in our featured listings (bam link to a pricing page or whatever you want the process to be). The message is get people into processes and guide them through it. You can even use the adpack module to direct people to all your advertising offers, change them regularly and set them into a process of buying an advert. The other trick is to ask questions: you can make a link like - Do you know how little it costs to advertise here? Most people will click it. If you put Do you want to know .... many people will not click it.

There is something worth reading a little about and that is NLP (neuro-linguistic programming - BIG WORDS). I really recommend this. Not all the details but the basics.

[HorseOptions]

Originally Posted by seymourjames

I agree with Larry that SEO is a full time job in itself and quite specialized. It is only worthwhile if you are going to win at it or you are in for a very frustrating time.

Bringing traffic to your site is one thing but keeping them there is another. I look at your home page and it did not push me to go to other pages. It is easily navigated, clean and tidy. Attractive for those qualities but in my humble opinion you are not saying enough of the right things or pushing people around your site. Here are some points to consider.

1. why do you tell people it is a new site (in my mind - here today, gone tomorrow). You might be excited but why should I be excited etc.

2. You do not instruct people enough on what you want them to do - BUY YOUR HORSE HERE, SELL YOUR HORSE HERE. Hundreds of horses for sale, etc. Put a set of testimonials on the side bar for example (I sold my black shetland pony in less than 2 days etc.). You don't need to tell them on your home page in this case boring things like I can bold or feature my advert etc.

This is not a plug for my wares but why not display the latest and featured listings on your home page. Put an arrow to them and say - Place your horse for sale here in our featured listings (bam link to a pricing page or whatever you want the process to be). The message is get people into processes and guide them through it. You can even use the adpack module to direct people to all your advertising offers, change them regularly and set them into a process of buying an advert. The other trick is to ask questions: you can make a link like - Do you know how little it costs to advertise here? Most people will click it. If you put Do you want to know .... many people will not click it.

There is something worth reading a little about and that is NLP (neuro-linguistic programming - BIG WORDS). I really recommend this. Not all the details but the basics.

Is this a little better? Be brought attention to the "Sell It" / "Buy It" links and then brought attention to New Listings. Do you think we really need to bring attention to the featured listings as well? But not just because it's more $ per ad?

Thanks again.

[Mike-N-Tosh +]

I don't know what type of stats that you are looking at, however you need to look at the referrers stats. (ie: where did the visitor come from to get to your site?)

The reason that I'm saying this is that you have posted here quite a bit asking for help as well as site critiques. Is the stat of "Bounce Rate" including all of the visits from the users "referred" from 68classifieds.com/forms??? If you were to remove those visits than what would your bounce rate be? What about the number of visits to your site that are directly from you working on the site? I know when I was initially developing my site, I had thousands of hits from my own ip address, let alone the numbre of "friends & family" that we sent there to get their opinion.

-Mike

[HorseOptions]

Good point about 68Classifieds. Only a couple of hits from here though and I have entered my IP as a filter. The bounce rate is down and the time on the site is good so that's a start. I apoligze for posting sooooo many questons on here. I think we're pretty well set. Thank you to everyone for putting up with a newbie. If there is anything we can do to market 68C, let us know.

[Mike-N-Tosh +]

No need to apologize about the number of questions. That is the reason for this forum... To help those that need help.

-Mike